This invention is directed to a system and method for the digital payment of document processing services. More particularly, this invention is directed to a system and method which uses a pre-paid or digital payment mechanism to charge for document processing services.
Often users will need to generate or work with documents or other data while in a remote location or self-contained environment. These users will generally need to generate image data, by printing or scanning a document, and then to need to distribute or perform other functions on such image data. Multifunctional peripheral devices, such as printers and scanning devices, routinely perform such operations. However, such devices must typically be in data communication with a financial system or other authentication system to authorize and manage the fees associated with such document processing services. Therefore, if the multifunctional peripheral device is not connected to such system or such connection is not able to be established, the user will not be able to perform the desired document processing operations.
It is also advantageous to have a mechanism for pre-payment of document services, such as printing, that does not require a separate card, such as a pre-paid debit card. It would be advantageous if prepayment, token or credit information, were to be intimately associated with a output device driver.
Also, in a business environment, users are typically grouped into departments or other related groupings for accounting purposes. Generally, each department has a budget for document processing operations. Currently, multifunctional peripheral devices do not have the functionality to have pre-paid or defined budgets determined within the device for each department. As such, users of a certain department are able to continue to use the multifunctional peripheral device for document processing operations after the department's budget has been exhausted.
The subject invention overcomes the aforementioned problems and provides a system and method for the digital payment of document processing services.